A memorial service is scheduled Friday for Arnold Laub, a prominent and flamboyant San Francisco personal-injury lawyer whose lawsuit on behalf of a crash victim helped start the campaign to install a median barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mr. Laub died Dec. 26 after being hospitalized for heart problems. He was 80.

He had practiced law in the Bay Area since 1961 and remained at work until two weeks before his death, said his wife, Isabelle Valentine Laub.

Born in Vallejo, Mr. Laub worked as a dance instructor at an Arthur Murray studio in Los Angeles before attending UC Berkeley and its law school. Former San Francisco Supervisor Angela Alioto, a longtime friend, said Mr. Laub would often recall the days when "he was a dishwasher boy at Berkeley, and his dream was to get into Boalt Hall."

Evening playing field

As a measure of his success, an entranceway at the law school has been named the Arnold Laub Lobby.

According to his website, Mr. Laub, while awaiting his bar exam results, worked as an insurance claims adjuster, encountered questionable company practices and "decided to represent the plaintiffs to even out the playing field."

He started what became one of the largest San Francisco law firms representing plaintiffs in injury cases, from dog bites and car crashes to defective medications.

One of his most important cases began in November 1994 when a driver on the Golden Gate Bridge sideswiped a truck driven by David Sutton, who veered across the center line and crashed into another truck, killing the driver.

Sutton, of Sonoma, lost a leg and four fingers and suffered extensive burns. He hired Mr. Laub and sued, seeking to shut down the bridge until it installed a median barrier.

The courts ruled against him, but Sutton and Mr. Laub continued to push for a barrier. In September, bridge district directors approved funding for a 32-inch-high median to be installed this fall.

Mr. Laub also filed one of the first lawsuits against the manufacturers of fen-phen, a widely prescribed diet drug that was taken off the market in 1997 because of side effects that included cases of heart valve damage. In 2000, a federal judge approved a nationwide $3.75 billion settlement for as many as 200,000 consumers.

Early use of billboards

Mr. Laub was also an early and frequent user of billboards and other advertising, which was forbidden by attorneys' ethical codes until the mid-1970s. The practice was controversial.

"Self-promotion is not a respected thing in the legal community," and for many lawyers, ads like those for Mr. Laub's firm were "anathema," said San Francisco attorney Bob Arns. But he said Mr. Laub was "actually a quite good lawyer and a good guy."

"You could say he was a little flamboyant, but why hide your success?" said another veteran personal-injury lawyer and longtime friend, Gary Gwilliam of Oakland.

Mr. Laub drove a Rolls-Royce and held birthday bashes at upscale restaurants and hotels, Gwilliam said.

Politically active in Democratic circles, Mr. Laub served as co-chairman of finances for John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004. In 2010 he was appointed by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom as chief financial officer of the San Francisco Finance Corp., an arm of the city controller's office that handles real estate purchases and construction.

Mr. Laub is survived by his wife; sons David Laub of Tiburon and Steven Laub of Atherton; daughters Tina-Marie Ashby of Farmington, Utah, and Alicia Laub of San Francisco; and eight grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The family requests that gifts in his name be made to the Boalt Hall Fund at UC Berkeley Law School, 2850 Telegraph Ave., Suite 500, Berkeley, CA 94705.